Vacuum generates impossible images and fantastic paintings, an interplay of bodies appearing and disappearing between black holes and dazzling lights.
This duo is the third part in a series of performances called Dispositifs (‘stage devices’), in convergence with visual arts. After Black Out (2011) and NEONS Never Ever, Oh! Noisy Shadows (2014), Vacuum explores a new aspect of our sensory perception through an optical illusion created with two neon tubes.

Interview with Director Philippe Saire

Describe, in as many or as few words as you see fit, the genesis of or inspiration behind Vacuum?

Initially it was a process I very briefly used in another show and I wanted to use it more deeply. This is the appearance and disappearance of bodies between two neon lights, which generates fascinating images and various qualities of grey. The neon tubes, when you stare at them, create a black hole for the audience as well as for the camera.

Everything was filmed in one day because we already had the experience of the show before. We just had to change some timing or movement and sometimes reorganize them. And the camera is fixed the whole time. The post production lasted three weeks.

If this is your first dance for film production, what are a few things you learned about making a dance for film that surprised you? If this is not your first dance for film production, what are a few things that you are continually trying to refine or learn as you have sought to work thru this medium of dance and film together?

It is not my first dance film production. Every time the issues are different. I’m more used to film dance in unusual places: in an urban environment, in nature – working with the specificities of every one of the places (See the long term project called Les Cartographies). With Vacuum it was my first time filming in this context but I knew at a very early stage that I had to film the images produced with this stage device. In this case it was essentially a question of editing.

What is interesting or intriguing to you about dance for film vs. dance for stage? Or, if you are coming from a film background and working with dance is a more new medium for you, what drew you to wanting to capture and work with dance?

I’m afraid I’ll answer with a banality: the questions of framing and editing are the main differences. Being able to get closer to the bodies, to move the camera as an eye would move inside the movement of the dancers (which however is not the case with Vacuum). In terms of editing, the transitions are much less constraining than onstage. It’s a huge feeling of freedom when I’m editing.